


Proposition

by Windian



Category: Tales of Graces
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 06:22:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9165829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windian/pseuds/Windian
Summary: President Paradine asks Lieutenant Oswell to lead the Strahtan forces to Lhant. Even now, he thinks he can see a trace of Hubert Lhant lingering in his eyes.





	

“I have a proposition, Hubert.”

“Sir?”

Hubert stands facing his president in the palace. Shoulders back, hands clasped behind his back: the perfect posture drummed into him by five years of the academy, and his father’s mercilessly high expectations.

Yet despite his perfect posture and the deferential bow he’d swept into as effortlessly though he’d done it a hundred times before, Hubert feels sweat forming between the blades of his shoulders. Garett Oswell taught him to walk into any man’s house as if he owned it, but he’s only visited the presidential palace a handful of times, and this is the first time he’s visited the president’s own office. It archetypes all the glamour the capital has to offer. Indoor waterfalls and glittering surfaces sparkle back at him from every angle.

Like all Strahtans, Hubert is patriotic— because who can help but admire a glittering oasis that has been built, literally, from the sand? But at the same time, though he’d never admit it out loud, there’s a part of him that tires of the glitter and glitz of Yu Liberte, and feels a nostalgic longing for something simpler.

“Please, at ease, Hubert. Come take a seat.”

“Sir,” Hubert says again, rigidly taking the armchair before the desk, and curtly tucking the tail of his outfit out of the way. The president smiles wryly.

The president is no stranger to him. The first time they’d been met Hubert had been eleven years old, wearing uncomfortably rich and stiff  clothes that had chafed unbearably. It’d been the first of many of his father’s endless galas, and Garett had spent the whole evening with his hand on Hubert’s back, steering him as if it were the rudder of a ship. Endless introductions with Important Strangers, whose faces blurred into one, and cries of, _oh, isn’t he charming! Give us a smile, sweetheart. Are you shy?_

Hubert had smiled that night until his face had gone numb, and then Garett had shoved him into the path of the most important stranger of the night, curtly whispering into his ear that he was to not mess this up, that it was imperative he made a good impression on this very important man or his new father would be very cross.

Hubert’s hand had been shaking when he offered it to the president, telling him that he was glad to meet him, and his father had told him very good things about him.

“I can imagine,” Paradine had said, something wry tucked into his smile. And then he’d done what no one else at the party had done and knelt down to Hubert’s level.

“Hubert, isn’t it? Our Garett’s new young protege. How are you enjoying Yu Liberte?”

“It’s— it’s beautiful, your Majesty,” he said stiffly. In the corner of his eye, Hubert saw Garett cover his face with his hand, and Hubert’s cheeks coloured as he realised the gaffe he’d made. “Um— I mean—”

President. Not king. He should have known that from his books.

But instead of mocking him, Paradine laughed. A deep booming laugh, and reached out to touch Hubert’s hair.

Just like his own father used to do.

“Please forgive my son. He is unused our customs—” Garett begun.

“No harm done, Garett. The young man here can hardly be expected to have picked up all our tiring and endless customs in just a few weeks,” the president said kindly. “You know, Hubert, when I was a boy I lived Oul Ray. When I was ten years old, my father packed up all my family and moved us here to the capital. I couldn’t stand it.”

Hubert stared at this open admission.

“Eventually, I learnt to love the city, but for those first few months I spent every day begging my father to let us go home.” He ruffled Hubert’s hair. “Being homesick is natural. So don’t feel like you need to get used to everything right away. You can adjust to things little by little.”

Though he spoke to him, Hubert saw the president’s eyes slide along to his father as he spoke. Paradine stood. “I’ll look forward to seeing you again, Hubert.”

“Y-you too, Sir,” Hubert had said.

Paradine shook Garett’s hand, somewhat stiffly. “Do go easily with the lad,” he said.

Garett had smiled, a smile full of slippery deviance and conniving. “Of course. Thank you for the advice, President.”

“Uh huh,” said Paradine, whose power clearly looked through the sort of men like Garett.

Then the hand was back on the rudder, and Garett was steering him away. Back to more mind boggling politics and power plays, into molding him into a young man worthy of the title _Oswell_. All the same, for a long time after that, Hubert thought fondly of the important man who’d put his hand on his head, and who had told him he understood.

 

*

 

Hubert doesn’t understand the President.

He’s the kind of man to call your by your first name and treat you as a friend, even if you’ve never met. He’s also, if the persistent rumours are true, the kind of man to spend his summer holidays masquerading as a commoner outside the city. It may be why he’s done what no Strahtan president has done and has been elected for his third consecutive term in office.

Seven years have passed since the day they met and the grey streaks in Paradine’s hair have taken over and there are more wrinkles when he smiles, but he still does smile. Which is more than can be said for Hubert himself.

Behind his back, Garett Oswell enjoys dropping seeds of dissension and mockery about the Paradine, but Hubert had always quietly admired their somewhat unorthodox president. Nor has he forgotten the kindness he paid him, all those years ago.

“What was this proposition you spoke of, Sir?” Hubert asks.

“I wondered if you’d heard anything from your hometown recently, Hubert,” the President says.

Hubert doesn’t let his surprise show at the question. “I believe they’re having some trouble with Fendel again, but I haven’t heard much,” he says, which is a mild way to put it when he routinely grills any men in his unit that have returned from Windor. It’s how he’s aware that his brother is still wasting his time playing around at the knight academy, and that no one has seen King Ferdinand and Prince Richard outside the castle gates in years.

Along with several other, more troubling rumours.

Paradine presses a finger to his chin. Hubert can feel him watching him carefully, as though to gauge his reaction. “Trouble would be an understatement. Fendel seems to have developed several new high powered weapons, and they’re chipping away at Lhant’s defences. Our reports say they probably won’t be able to last out much longer.”

Despite himself, Hubert’s fingers dig into the armchair.

I’m a man of Strahta, he tells himself. Lhant isn’t my hometown any longer. And yet…

“How curious,” says Paradine. “I admit I was interested to see if you would rush off to go defend your homeland.”

“Strahta is my homeland,” Hubert says, stiffly. “I won’t desert it.”

“Your loyalty is admirable. But that’s not a choice I would ask you to make, Hubert. We’ve received a request for aid from Windor’s foreign ambassador, the King’s brother. With very lucrative terms. He’s offered us access to Lhant’s cryas mines in exchange for our aid.”

Hubert’s brow creases. “Shouldn’t this request be coming from Lord Aston? The Crown’s never stepped in to interfere with its autonomous states before.” His tongue catches around the name like teeth grazing an ulcer. It's been some time since he's spoken it aloud.

“You’re sharp, Hubert. There was another part of the deal as well, but I fear you probably wouldn’t wish to hear it. You were friends with Prince Richard as a child, weren’t you?”

Hubert nods, waiting for an incoming explanation. None, however, are forthcoming.

Thinking of the rumours he’d wrestled out of the sailors from the port at Barona, he feels a small sinking feeling in his stomach.

The president’s eyes seem to hold an apology. “We must look after the our own country, and our people first. Even if that doesn’t always seem to be the right moral decision,” he says, and there’s a heaviness to him, and oldness he’d never expected to see from the President.

Hubert realises he can’t resent the President for the decision he’s making.

He nods his head, stiffly. “Thank you for informing me, Sir. I appreciate it.” He moves to leave, but the President stops him.

“I’m not done just yet, Hubert. I believe I said I had a proposition for you, didn’t I?”

He sinks back down. “Sir?”

“I need someone to lead the forces to Lhant. As the former son of its lord, I believe you’d be the optimum choice in acquiring the people of Lhant’s co-operation. What do you say?”

“Me?” asks Hubert.

“Yes. You. Seven years is a long time. It would be quite the homecoming.”

Lhant isn’t my home, is the instinctual comment he bites down. There’s the lingering bitterness that presides in his gut, but more than that— Hubert wants to help. The thought of his hometown tramped by the cold boot of Fendel is too much to bear.

But— “What will I say to him?”

He doesn’t even need to specify who. “Lord Aston?”

In a small, short movement, Hubert nods.

Paradine crosses his hands. “Show him the pride of Strahta. Show him what he thoughtlessly threw away.”

Hubert raises his head.

“I’ll do it.”

“I knew you would,” said the President, standing to shake Hubert’s hand.

Even if Lord Aston couldn’t save Lhant, Hubert would. Even if it was painful, he’d return to his old home. His hands clench, so tight his knuckles whiten.

And then his father would regret ever tossing him aside.

 

*

 

“Mister President, I wanted to thank you for taking in my request about sending Hubert to Lhant,” Garett Oswell says.

The party tonight is to raise money for victims of the earthquake south of Sable Izolle. Paradine takes a drink of his champagne.

“You’re welcome, but I didn’t do it for you,” the President says.

He can feel Garett eyeing him. That cool discerning gaze is alarmingly similar to his son’s. That bright young boy, who had looked at him so earnestly once. “So then why?” Garett asks.

“Call me sentimental, but I think it’d be good for him to revisit his hometown and see his family.”

“I’m his family,” Garett replies, and Paradine shoots him a look as though he’s very sorry about that fact.

Paradine finishes his champagne and sets it on the tray a passing waiter wafts past with. “You’ve thoroughly managed to bury your claws in him, but I’d like to think there’s still some of that boy I met years ago inside him. I guess we’ll see.”

Garett’s voice is deeply dry. “I guess we will.”


End file.
